8.45 AM: Team Symantec heads out to meet the NGOs partners for the very first time.

Go Team Go!

9.00 AM: The session kicks off with the NGO representatives introducing their organizations and expressing their excitement about the Symantec collaboration. It was eye opening to see how the three organizations and their causes were so interconnected.

12.00 PM: We make our way 4 floors up to the roof top restaurant and share lunch with the flying broom staff.

1.30 PM: We walk through a vibrant area of town to the flying broom office.

2.00 PM: We enter Flying Broom office – a fairly large space with 5 rooms and a kitchen. We are introduced to the staff and entertained with endless glasses of Turkish tea. After the meet and greet, Özlem the festival coordinator and our main point of contact, takes us on a tour of the office. The magnitude of the task at hand unveils itself as we see shelves and shelves and shelves and shelves of binders and documents and brochures and video tapes that need to be digitized, archived and made accessible to Flying Broom staff and selectively to the public online.

2.30 PM: We are acquainted with the Founder of Flying Broom, Halime Güner as she eloquently describes in Turkish, how she created the organization to take forward the mission of women’s empowerment. Özlem kindly translated this for us into English.

2.45 PM: The Flying Broom team squeals with delight when Team Symantec presents them with some logo souvenirs, chocolates from Dublin and sweets, tea and Ayurvedic cosmetics from India.

3.00 PM: An intense brainstorming session begins. Travis, Amitoj and Archana delve into the depths of their experience to define the problem statement, the emerging scope of work, and an initial set of questions to further clarify the needs and requirements of Flying Broom.

4.30 PM: We reach out to Flying Broom for Q&A and find out that their bandwidth is severely limited due to a number of upcoming events related to the International Women’s Day, on March 8 2015. We manage to get Özlem, the project coordinator, to spare some time to get answers and help clarify the evolving scope.

5.10 PM: Good news! The Founder drops in to inform us that a neutral candidate has been elected to monitor the Turkish Government’s enforcement of the EU Commission’s “Istanbul Agreement”, a document which lays guidelines for ending domestic violence and child marriages.

6.00 PM: Just as we are finishing up a long day, we are invited to join the Flying Broom members at the Romanian Embassy for a reception in honor of Women Artists in Ankara.

Amitoj basks in the limelight of photo-ops with VIPs, having been assumed to be a member of the Indian Embassy.

8.30 PM: Team Flying Broom finally has a chance to relax over dinner enjoying vegan Sushi.

10.30 PM: But the day is not over as we have to finish this blog!

So here we are wrapping up close to midnight after a very long yet fruitful and exciting day.